Dakota, IL
Dakota, IL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Dakota lands at the 4th percentile for wildfire risk to structures — among the lower wildfire-risk places nationally — a figure built from its 309 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
USFS's separate burn-probability score — fire likelihood alone, before counting what's built there — puts Dakota at the 4th percentile, close to its 4th-percentile risk score.
Where Dakota's buildings actually sit
Dakota rates 83.2% Minimal exposure against just 16.8% Direct and 0% Indirect — of 309 buildings counted, few sit close enough to burnable vegetation for USFS to flag them individually.
Where Dakota ranks
Compare Dakota's two percentiles: 24th within Illinois, only 4th nationally — a gap of 20 points that marks it as unusually exposed for its own state. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Dakota ranks 30,214 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 21,389 by building count (1 is largest). Within Illinois alone, it ranks 1,095 of 1,445 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Illinois on its state page.
What this risk score means for insurance
Dakota's low rating (4th percentile nationally) sits outside the range where wildfire risk alone reshapes an insurance market — still, a homeowner here loses nothing by comparing rates.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 83.2% of buildings rated Minimal exposure, Dakota gets less benefit from structure hardening than a Direct- or Indirect-dominant place would — the home-hardening guide explains why the zone matters.
More on how this number was built
Dakota's 4th-percentile score and its burn-probability figure both come from the same USFS workbook, documented in the methodology guide. For more on what minimal exposure implies beyond Dakota, see the exposure-zones guide.